Web 2.0http://soa.sys-con.com/
Latest articles from Web 2.0enCopyright 2015 Ulitzer.comUlitzer.comTue, 31 Mar 2015 16:47:18 EDThttp://backend.userland.com/rss10IoT: I Don't Care How Big It Is!http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2926928
I'm reading a McKinsey report from May 2013 that talks about 12 disruptive technologies, including cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT). I'll focus on the IoT here. The report estimates the IoT Internet to be worth between $2.7 and $6.2 trillion by the year 2025.(The world's combined GDP is about $72 trillion today.) When it comes to the IoT, the report says there could be 50 billion new devices connected to the Internet by 2025, or maybe a trillion. Give or take.
With all due respect, these numbers are nonsense, perhaps, and irrelvant, doubtlessly. It does no one any good to estimate things within a few trillion dollars or a factor of 20X.
We also have no idea what the world will look like politically more than a decade from now. Will the year 2025 harken the beginning of Hillary Clinton's third term as President of the United States? Or perhaps the Cruz/Paul administration's first? Will China be the world's economic collosus, and/or perhaps the world's largest democracy?
Over the past two decades, no one expected the fall of the Soviet Union or the Arab Spring; the dot-com meltdown came as a catastropic shock to many (and removed $7 trillion in wealth), and our favorite uncle Alan Greenspan now admits he had no idea that the Great Recession was looming. We humans are terrible at predicting the future.
But we live with the certainty that technology evolves and has great potential to improve the fate of nations and people. Technology is apolitical, agnostic, and indefatigable in the face of geo-political pettiness and conflict. We all know this. “Learning” that the cloud or IoT might add a trillion here and there, or several trillion, adds no value to any discussion.
McKinsey did its due diligence in rounding up a passel of big names (eg, Eric Schmidt, And it gives the usual, clichéd nod to Schumpeter's idea of creative destruction in touting the 12 disruptions.
Let's Get Specific
But those of us working in the industry need to be a little more specific. The IoT encompasses an enormous range of devices, uses, and industries.
I first led discussions of it at an event in Beijing in 2011. McKinsey, to its credit, issued a nice report sans numbers in 2010. One company tweeted me yesterday that they've been doing IoT stuff since 2007.
OK, got it. The IoT is not a brand-new idea. But it is now gaining big traction. It is already throwing datacenter developers into a tizzy as they grapple with delivering a magnitude more processing in a short time. Industrial design is moving to the fore, not just the province of Apple anymore. Google just bought a company for $3.2 billion, a harbinger of an IoT spring.
The IoT generates Big Data, which in turn is best handled by virtualized resources and Cloud Computing, which in turn are begetting the Software-Defined Networks (SDN) and Software-Defined Datacenter (SDDC). Emerging DevOps culture also fits in here, as a function of the speed required to bring ideas to fruition.
For my part, I spend a lot of my time working within a start-up that aims to deliver personal websites, photos, and video to as many people as possible, worldwide, some day. We virtualize, we use the cloud, and we will be encountering bigger datasets as we encounter mobile devices on our grid, and the telemetry that goes with them.
It's a big development challenge, and one in which we operate in blissful ignorance of whether we're operating within a $1.7 or $6.2 trillion opportunity.
In summary, as a writer and as Conference Chair of @thingsexpo, I have a simple question: what are you doing? Please let me know!
Contact Me on Twitter
<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2926928" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Tue, 29 Jul 2014 17:00:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2926928Facebook Plays Short and Long Game with WhatsApp and Oculus Rift | Part 1http://soa.sys-con.com/node/3115126
When Facebook decided to invest a cool $19 billion ($16 billion upfront) for messaging app WhatsApp the entire world was bound to take notice. Telecommunications types, in particular, were keen to understand how this latest move would impact them as mobile operators have been feeling the heat from over the top (OTT) players like Google and Facebook for years. (To put this $19 billion in perspective, AT&T, one of the world’s largest telecom carriers, invests about $20 billion in networks and spectrum in an entire year.) Shortly thereafter, in another surprise move and with the dust not quite settled on WhatsApp, Facebook picked up virtual reality startup Oculus Rift for $2 billion. This left many in the industry wondering what exactly was going on. While WhatsApp and Facebook’s previous acquisition of Instagram for $1 billion were in keeping with its social network roots, Oculus Rift was in the video game industry and had yet to release a product. This led many to ask: What was Zuckerberg thinking? But if you dig deeper, these acquisitions are intertwined and central to Facebook’s short and long term play to develop the next-generation communications platform. With WhatsApp and Oculus Rift, Facebook takes on Google and mobile providers in the race to do just that.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/3115126" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Mon, 07 Jul 2014 07:45:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/3115126Android for Programmers and Android How to Program (2nd Editions)http://soa.sys-con.com/node/3105555
This review is for two books. It is for Android: How to Program (2nd Edition) and Android for Programmers: An App-Driven Approach (2nd Edition) . Why? Because Android: How to Program (2nd Edition) includes the entire Android for Programmers: An App-Driven Approach (2nd Edition) book.
Android: How to Program (2nd Edition) is in black and white and it also includes a Java language overview/reference. This book is great for the programmer coming from another language. Having the Java reference included as the second half of the book comes in really handy. Lately I have spent most of my time in Objective-C building client apps and C# building Web API RESTFul services. Having the Java reference handy was helpful.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/3105555" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Fri, 20 Jun 2014 09:00:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/3105555Should the Internet Be Re-Classified as a Communications Service? | Part 1http://soa.sys-con.com/node/3079141
The net neutrality debate continues to provide plenty of fodder for consumers, businesses, carriers, over the top (OTT) providers and pundits to argue the points of Internet openness, competition (or lack thereof) and blocking and favoring on the part of Internet service providers (ISPs). Much of the discussion tends to end up debating the impact of net neutrality on Internet openness. This is interesting since in the U.S. government has not enacted legislation to actually define and require Internet openness or to specify what level of non-openness is acceptable, if any. So openness is a concept without legal definition or backing, which means that individual opinions vary on what constitutes fettering and what doesn’t. And it was attempts by the FCC to fill this gap with the Open Internet Order that triggered the court action on net neutrality.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/3079141" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Tue, 06 May 2014 11:00:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/3079141Why You Should Not Build a Mobile Application for Your Channel Partnershttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/3078589
It seems every five years or so there is a buzz in the channel about a new way to engage your channel partners, communicate with them more effectively and “stay top of mind”. In the last two years, mobile apps for your channel have been the latest fad. But the reality is falling short of the promise. Downloads of vendor branded mobile apps are low and utilization is even lower. Why? And why is building a branded mobile PRM application a bad idea?<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/3078589" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Thu, 01 May 2014 16:10:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/3078589What Is 'Real-Time' Anyway...? http://soa.sys-con.com/node/3066950
So what does real-time mean anyway? An example is, what are referred to as, “hard-real-time systems” [2], where computation must meet stringent timing constraints and one must guarantee that those computations must be completed before specified deadlines. Failure to do so can lead to intolerable system degradation and can in some applications lead to catastrophic loss of life or property.
Many safety-critical systems are hard-real-time systems, and include embedded tactical systems for military applications, flight mission control, traffic control, production control, nuclear plant control etc. and in many cases the real-time properties need to be guaranteed and proven - often using techniques such as formal methods [3] for example.
<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/3066950" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Mon, 28 Apr 2014 08:00:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/30669502014 Super Bowl Tips to Avoid Ad Site Failshttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2965353
This year, the Seattle Seahawks dealt Denver one of the worst beatings in recent Super Bowl history; however, the only highlights of the broadcast were the commercials. They ranged from serious and thought-provoking to funny and quirky. Each ad was meant to do one thing: drive eyes to a brand. With most of the population watching with their phones and tablets, every advertiser’s site had to be ready for those eyeballs.
Everyone wants to interview the winners and losers after the game. There is a dissection of every drive as analysts want to understand key aspects of success and failure.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2965353" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Fri, 14 Feb 2014 12:00:00 ESThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2965353Technical & Business Web Performance Tips for Super Bowl Ad Landing Pageshttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2951065
Two days before the Super Bowl people are not only betting on the winner, but also on the best commercial. Will the millions of dollars spent really pay off for the advertisers? We took a closer look at the Super Bowl Ad landing pages for these Super Bowl Ads. Our synthetic monitoring showed huge differences ranking from 1.4 to 10s+ load time. If these pages are already slow prior to the big day, we wonder how they will do on Sunday and if there is anything that can be done to speed things up.
With this blog we hope to give a wake-up signal to some of these companies. They need to take another look into their current deployment because we see a lot of web performance mistakes all over the place like:<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2951065" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Fri, 31 Jan 2014 13:20:00 ESThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2951065Satellites, GPS Tracking, Artificial Intelligence and Mobile Technologieshttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2874428
My good friend J.D. Axford, a civil engineer and hero of all ducks for his wetlands work, sent me a very interesting (if you are into GPS tracking, GIS, mobile technology, artificial intelligence, accelerometers, etc.) article he wrote on how the physical is meeting the digital in the world of construction and engineering today. I am including it here for your pleasure and education.
Compaction, in heavy construction, is the application of energy to soil, crushed rock, or asphalt to increase density by driving out air, which enables the finished, compacted material to support buildings, roadways, and other structures. Compaction is specified as a percentage of the maximum dry density determined in the lab.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2874428" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Tue, 19 Nov 2013 08:00:00 ESThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2874428Supporting GIS and Mapping Solutions on Muddy Tablets http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2869860
I want to introduce you to a long time friend of mine J.D. Axford. He is a civil engineer with all kinds of acronyms after his name (P.E., CESCL, etc.), who has worked for most of his career in the Northwest of the USA in and around water and mud. He is a hero among the duck population for his many years working with wetlands. He is you may say, an expert in outdoors field data collection.
I can remember a time about 25 years ago when J.D. and myself were perched above a waterfalls along the East Fork of the Lewis river in Washington state measuring water flow and collecting data together. It was, in fact, cold and muddy work.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2869860" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Mon, 18 Nov 2013 07:00:00 ESThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2869860Book Review: The Enthusiastic Employee (2nd Edition)http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2860088
So I opened my resume and counted how many places I have been since leaving the electronic engineering field. I have had 18 gigs. Most of that time was spent as a consultant in the role of software architect or software process engineer. Most gigs were like building a house. You do the architectural plans, lead the team through development, and you leave. Home builders do not hang around waiting for something to need repaired. They turn the keys over to the owners and move on to the next house.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2860088" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Mon, 11 Nov 2013 12:00:00 ESThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2860088Why Home Automation Needs a Real-Time Service Provider http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2817062
You may not realize it, but your house is getting smarter. Devices that were once entirely manually controlled, whether it’s your thermostat, the locks on your doors, or your porch lights, are now entering an era of autonomy, and the list of devices in the home automation spectrum is continuing to grow. Now that the masses are armed with smartphones, why shouldn’t you be able to control your home…when you’re not home?
Home automation is getting more advanced, smarter, and more streamlined by the day. When you flip a light switch, you expect that light bulb to turn on instantly. For a home automation solution, you need that exact same functionality when controlling your home from a smartphone app; the same speed and reliability.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2817062" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Tue, 01 Oct 2013 16:07:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2817062Engaging the Mobile Visitorhttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2779044
In today’s hyper-connected world, Web and mobile application performance is playing a more critical role than ever in driving user adoption and engagement. End-users have high expectations – they expect pages to load faster than ever before and they expect richer and more engaging Web experiences and applications.
At the same time, mobile is a fast-growing, global phenomenon that is changing the way we all interact with content, whether for business, information or entertainment. As such, the ability to engage mobile users with fast, quality Web experiences has become a business requirement and a prerequisite for success. Ignore the needs of mobile users, and risk losing a large and growing portion of the business. <p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2779044" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Sun, 08 Sep 2013 14:45:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2779044Making a Case for a Test Casehttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2759026
For software testers to create a detailed test case during the QA process can be tricky: sometimes it’s not an option; sometimes it’s wasted effort. Here are ways to help make that decision.
Part of the skill set required to be a good tester involves the ability to assess a software project and decide when it’s worth putting in the effort to create really detailed test cases. Sometimes the software will lend itself to unstructured testing, sometimes the development methodology will dictate a specific approach, and sometimes every possible facet will need to be covered. If you plotted projects on a graph you would get a bell curve because most of them fall somewhere in between the casual and the comprehensive.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2759026" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Tue, 20 Aug 2013 11:15:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2759026Eight Rs of Enterprise Mobility, Opportunity Costs & Strategic Investmentshttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2756077
It is true that enterprise mobility is about the eight Rs - getting the right information, to the right person, at the right time, in the right place, in the right amount, on the right device, in the right format so they can make right decisions, but there are even more benefits. Enterprise mobility can also be about saving money that can be invested more profitably in other places. Let me share a real-life scenario:
A large distributor of consumer package goods and fresh food, with many delivery trucks would often run out of inventory that customers along their routes would request when the drivers arrived. These requests represented potential sales that could not be captured because the products were not available in the trucks. The end result was sales were not being maximized.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2756077" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Mon, 19 Aug 2013 07:30:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2756077The Changing Facets of External Communicationhttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2703270
External communication methodology has evolved vastly in the last century, especially during the last two decades. We have witnessed the evolution in communication methodology with every new step the internet revolution has taken forward. So, we have moved from sending letters to phone calls to mobile communication via SMSes and cellular calls, emails and have finally arrived at the current scenario where communication occurs at various levels through emails, instant messaging, communicating via social networks, voice and video chats etc.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2703270" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Fri, 21 Jun 2013 14:00:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2703270The Wearable-Gesture Security Risk Danger Zonehttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2705132
There are only two certainties in life – death and taxes, said Benjamin Franklin. What the theorist and founding father clearly meant was: There are only three certainties in life – death and taxes and information security changeability.
In the constantly changing dynamic world of malware, viral attacks, spam, phishing, zero days attacks and targeted exploits we know only one thing for sure – tomorrow will bring new insight.
This somewhat generic introduction is merely offered to whet the appetite and suggest that we are on the edge of a new “device paradigm” in the form of a) wearable technology combined with a side order of of b) facial recognition served up with a more meaty portion of c) emerging gesture recognition technology.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2705132" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Fri, 21 Jun 2013 09:00:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2705132100 Years in the Movies: One Evening’s Web Performancehttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2588939
Both Paramount and Universal celebrated their 100th anniversary last year, which is a long time to be in the movie business. Arguably, both have made some good, some great, and some bad movies. But, during this year’s Super Bowl, Paramount showed Universal how to design a ‘fast and furious’ web site that stood up to the flood of visitors during and after the game.
This article will discuss not only how Paramount was able to do it, but will also compare Universal and Paramount’s Super Bowl web site results, which shines a light on key factors for successful web performance: fewer connections to fewer hosts requesting smaller objects produces a smaller page size having a positive impact on page response time.
To begin, Universal and Paramount are near equals when it comes to their web age. Jumping over to <a href="http://web.archive.org" title="http://web.archive.org">http://web.archive.org</a>, I found Paramount launched its first site 16 years ago in 1997 and Universal’s first site came online 15 years ago in 1998. With the same amount of experience on the Web, it’s interesting to explore why one company performed better during this year’s Super Bowl.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2588939" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Sun, 24 Mar 2013 15:00:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2588939Telecommuting – The Invisible Employeehttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2473206
One of the truisms in information technology is that everything old is new again – well, except maybe for punched cards. We went from big corporate data centers to regional/division corporate data centers back to big corporate data centers and now to even bigger cloud data centers. We have gone from dumb terminals were everything was done on the mainframe, to PCs, and now to virtualized desktops – where everything is run on the central servers. And now, we are back to talking about the IT advantages of telecommuting.
Telecommuting is certainly nothing new. But what is changing is how people are telecommuting and the IT processes and procedures that support them. Gone are the days of modem banks and analog days. Gone are the days when IT departments handed out PCs so people could work from home. And gone are the days when connecting remote employees meant connecting them directly into the corporate network.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2473206" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Mon, 10 Dec 2012 06:00:00 ESThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2473206Software Developers Must Target the Social Enterprisehttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2380081
Many firms still dismiss the importance of social networking and some of them even ban employees from using these services while in the workplace. They think that “social” starts and ends with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other networks that might be best described as informal, consumer level and perhaps even fun.
It would be unfair to blame these old traditionalists who have dug their heels in and insisted that their traditional trading systems don’t need fixing, let alone reinventing. It has been a so-called ‘paradigm shift’ and a change in mindset toward social is sometimes a lot to ask for.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2380081" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Mon, 01 Oct 2012 04:00:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2380081The Uncharted Territory of User Behavior Datahttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2316186
Exploring the uncharted territory of user behavior data in web "walled-gardens."
The uncharted territory of user behavior data based on what users do in such web walled gardens as Facebook was the focus of a "tweet jam" last week organized by The Open Group.
Some of the many notable participants in the tweet jam around the hash tag #ogChat on July 11 worried about the prospect of misuse of the user identity and behavior data, but were more mixed about what to do about it. I was the moderator of the tweet jam. [Disclosure: The Open Group is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]
With hundreds of tweets flying at break-neck pace, yesterday's #ogChat saw a very spirited discussion on the Internet's movement toward a walled garden model. In case you missed the conversation, you're now in luck! Here's a re-cap of yesterday's #ogChat.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2316186" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Fri, 20 Jul 2012 07:00:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2316186Online Collaboration Improves Procurementhttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2269945
Cox Enterprises, through the Ariba Network, manages multiple ERP systems for an improved eProcurement strategy.
We'll learn how Cox, through the Ariba Network, manages multiple ERP systems for an improved eProcurement strategy, and has moved toward more efficient indirect spend efforts to improve ongoing operations and drive future growth across more than 50,000 employees.
We have six separate ERP systems spanning major subsidiaries, including Cox Communications, Manheim, Cox Media Group, and AutoTrader.com. Cox is a very interesting company in that our business units are very diverse and very unique. Across four divisions and our holding company we have those six ERP systems.
<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2269945" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Mon, 07 May 2012 10:45:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2269945Book Review: Elemental Design Patternshttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2270017
Elemental Design Patterns are the underlying core concepts of programming and software design that have remained described.
This book is a book I wish I had 15 years ago to help me put the basics of programming into their proper context. Learning how to make use of patterns over the years would have been much simpler had I read this book first.
I have listed the chapters of the book below along with the patterns in the catalog. Take a look at he names of the patterns and you can see how low level these patterns are.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2270017" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Mon, 07 May 2012 05:15:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2270017An SCM Case Study: Social Networking in the Enterprise http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2194811
We are in a era where the consumer social networking in the form of face book and twitter are part of every one life. While there are several usages seen for the value proposition of these social networking tools in one’s personal life . However not much tools and the associated use cases are not seen for the effective usage of social networking in enterprise, which in a way should be facilitator for high productivity within the enterprise.
While the advantages of this platform are obvious, one issue may be lack of proper platforms which understands the enterprise application integration scenarios from the system processes point of view while providing a human touch to complete the enterprise social computing.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2194811" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Thu, 08 Mar 2012 07:45:00 ESThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2194811Harnessing the Power of Social Mediahttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2001423
Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how businesses need to respond to a marketplace changed by social media mechanisms.﻿<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2001423" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:00:00 ESThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2001423How to Wreck a Good Product in 90 Days or Lesshttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2065334
The purpose of this article is to tell you how to take a perfectly good (or even a great) product that you’ve potentially spent years and millions of dollars creating - and thoroughly and efficiently ruin it in the shortest amount of time possible.
“Why would I want to do that?”, you might ask. Honestly, I don’t know why. But there must be a good reason because I see it happen with shocking regularity.
<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2065334" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:00:00 ESThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2065334Klout.com: When Messing with People’s Lives, You’d Better Be Transparenthttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2039674
Netflix's most recent antics infuriated some, amused others and bored most. But one thing about Netflix - Netflix never tried to potentially impact your social and economic life (and not tell you about it). That's not true with Klout.
Not familiar with Klout.com? Not all that many people are - I only signed up for it this week, more out of curiosity than anything else after I read an article on it on Engadget - curious about Klout giving away Windows phones that I didn't want anyways.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2039674" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Fri, 28 Oct 2011 09:03:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2039674Netflix Shocker: Confidence Crisishttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2035579
The last six months have been disastrous for Netflix and Netflix CEO Hastings. The latest surprise - spooking investors with projected losses into next year, and with results for the most recent quarter significantly lower than even bearish analyst expectations. Why are investors fleeing? Simple - they've lost faith in Netflix leadership.
Netflix Inc. (NFLX) dropped the most in seven years after the video-rental service said it lost 800,000 U.S. subscribers in the third quarter, more than expected, and predicted more cancellations over a price increase.
Netflix plunged 37 percent to $75.28 at 9:39 a.m. New York time, for the biggest intraday decline since October 2004. The stock closed at an all-time high of $298.73 on July 13, according to Bloomberg data.
The outlook suggests Netflix has been unable to contain a subscriber revolt over a price increase and aborted plan to force subscribers into separate streaming and DVD services. The company now forecasts losses in 2012 because of costs to offer content in the U.K. and Ireland, and will delay further expansion until profitability is restored.
<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2035579" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:45:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2035579It's a Game, It's Fun… It's Work?http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2027965
Be honest. What comes to mind when you picture a gamer? To speak on behalf of many of us, the typical stereotype is of a socially awkward man who never grew up that lives in his parents’ basement whose social interactions are primarily online with other gamers via his handsome avatar.
Right? It turns out that we’re wrong. Today's gamers include millions of Americans of all ages and backgrounds. In fact, nearly three-quarters (72%) of all American households play computer or video games (Entertainment Software Association). And the number is skyrocketing thanks to the popularity of games on mobile devices and social networks: Ten years ago there were between 150 million to 200 million gamers. Now, there are over 1 billion gamers globally. (<a href="http://www.scribbal.com/2011/08/infographic-the-rise-of-social-gaming/" title="http://www.scribbal.com/2011/08/infographic-the-rise-of-social-gaming/">http://www.scribbal.com/2011/08/infographic-the-rise-of-social-gaming/</a>)
Why should you care? The reality is that your workforce is likely made up of a bunch of gamers. Your employees are spending their free time and money playing games. What if there was a way for you to tap into this interest AND improve your business?
Enter gamification. Gamification is taking what’s fun and addicting about video games and applying it to every day tasks to make them more engaging. With the huge popularity of social games on Facebook and applications such as FourSquare, businesses are also now beginning to experiment with gamification to not only capture the attention of consumers, but to engage and motivate their own employees.
The numbers are pointing towards gamification being the next big thing for IT. Gartner predicts that by 2014, more than 70 percent of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application.
What does this look like? There are countless ways that games can be applied to work environments to increase employee engagement, change behavior, and ultimately impact the bottom line. Consider how games could improve project management, programming, employee training, customer service or sales effectiveness.
An easy example to visualize is the call center, notorious for focusing employees on performing mundane, repetitive tasks that oftentimes involve an unhappy customer on the other end. There is little camaraderie or collaboration. Creating energy in a call center has always been a challenge. You can give extra incentives for certain key performance indicators, but oftentimes those incentives result in only a temporary upswing in agent motivation and performance.
What if we looked at the entire idea of incentives differently? What if the call center became a game and the operators were the players? With the average age of a call center worker being 23, the adoption of new technology and a gaming culture is a natural fit. Here’s how a call center can be gamified:<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2027965" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Thu, 20 Oct 2011 04:00:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/2027965Enterprise App Stores: What Is It? Who Needs It?http://soa.sys-con.com/node/1953175
With the proliferation of mobile devices being used in the workplace, and the concept of BYOD (Bring Your Own Devices [to work], “the Consumerization of IT” is not just buzz in the marketplace – it is a reality for many corporations, and soon to be mainstream. Needless to say corporate IT is now facing the challenge of controlling the distribution and management of applications being used on mobile devices in the workforce. Most firms currently don’t have in-house mobile development and management teams at their disposal, and as such are turning more and more to Enterprise App Stores (EAS) as a solution.
But what is an Enterprise App Store?
Simply put: An Enterprise App Store for corporate IT (not to be confused with app stores that sell business apps) allows a company to securely control the licensing, distribution and management of approved applications to end users more effectively. Designed for the new generation of tablet computers, smart devices and cloud computing platforms, the Enterprise App Store is a way to ensure corporate policies and procedures are met while giving employees the user-friendly experience commonly found in consumer style app stores. <p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/1953175" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:00:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/1953175Enterprise Search 2.0: How to Unleash Your Data’s Potentialhttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/1817308
IDC analysts predict that by 2020 there will be 15 quintillion files in existence. That kind of volume has brought us to a point where we are using a term like “exabyte” (and quintillion!) to describe how much data exists. How much of that data will your organization own and how will you access it?
Dispersed across multiple systems, silos, geographies, and regions, data on its own provides no real inherent value. Native search boxes within applications only show a narrow picture of your data contained within that one application – certainly not enough information to make fast, informed business decisions. What about data contained in customer and employee communities? How can you access the valuable information contained in these rapidly growing, knowledge-intensive communities?
Let’s face it – data will never be contained; it will continue to proliferate, particularly with the growth in popularity of social networks and communities. Trying to move it into a single knowledgebase or other system of record is a losing battle. Instead, the key to unleashing your data’s potential lies in the ability to access it anywhere, anytime, and across any and all systems.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/1817308" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Wed, 04 May 2011 08:15:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/1817308Mobile Enablement Presents Challenges and Opportunities http://soa.sys-con.com/node/1758142
The best way to facilitate mobile enablement projects is with focused, goal oriented, up-front planning that doesn’t underestimate the complexity of the process, especially when dealing with traditional data integration techniques.
Mobile adoption rates are on the rise and if market reports are any indication, growth rates aren’t slowing down anytime soon. Consumers and employees alike are the driving forces behind mobile adoption spurred by the evolution in mobile device capabilities along with the speed of mobile networks.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/1758142" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Fri, 18 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/1758142Effectively Manage Embedded Solutions Remotelyhttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/1632823
To get through a long day at the office you grab a snack from the vending machine, which never seems to be out of your favorite item thanks to a network connection that sends inventory information and replenishment requests to the vending management company. After work, you call home and ask what to pick up for dinner, making the call using a Bluetooth connection between your cell phone and the communications system in your car. On the way home you stop at the grocery store to grab dinner and rent a DVD from a rental machine.
Transactions like these occur every day by people around the world thanks to embedded systems that run inside vending machines, gas pumps, kiosks, price checkers, retail point-of-sale stations and other devices within the retail, hospitality and financial sectors of the market. Embedded Systems can also be found in many household items including utility meters, appliances, security systems, set-top boxes like DVRs, and home electronics. There are even embedded systems in medical devices in hospitals and doctors’ offices and in factories or industrial sectors as part of machine-to-machine (M2M) interfaces such as processing equipment, controllers, sensors and robotics/automation equipment.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/1632823" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Wed, 01 Dec 2010 10:12:00 ESThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/1632823Is Web 2.0 Dead or Is It Thriving?http://soa.sys-con.com/node/1509808
If you listen to Gartner then you will get confused. In 2009, Gartner in their Hype Cycle declared that Web 2.0 is the technology which will have transformational impact on enterprise. However, on 2010, Web 2.0 does not even find a place in the Hype Cycle. Since Gartner is sending confusing signals, we need to look for other signals [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=setandbma.wordpress.com&blog=3978262&post=773&subd=setandbma&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" /><p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/1509808" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:18:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/1509808Business Agility Depends on DevOpshttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/1463839
True business agility is not about doing more application updates faster. True business agility is about doing more application changes faster without sacrificing the application’s performance or service quality. The more experience one has in trying to manage the performance or service quality of constantly changing applications the more it becomes clear that the number of application performance problems depends on increasing collaboration between development and operations.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/1463839" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Wed, 14 Jul 2010 12:42:17 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/1463839What Did We Learn at Cloud Expo in New York?http://soa.sys-con.com/node/1369140
A year ago, most IT execs were looking into the "what" of Cloud Computing, as Cloud Expo speaker Dr. Hal Stern of Oracle noted. "But this year, people are here to talk about 'how.'" as he said during his session in New York. (Hal was so integral to Sun Microsystems for so long, it's odd to write or see the phrase "Dr. Hal Stern of Oracle." It's sort of like saying "Wayne Gretzky of the Los Angeles Kings," although we're not sure how hockey-fan Hal feels about being compared to The Great One.)
Cloud Expo in New York did have that "how" feel through and through, in a way that Santa Clara did not. The last-minute rush in Santa Clara reflected an extreme interest in Cloud; everyone showed up at once to see what all the hubbub was about. In New York, they showed up to see how to squeeze performance out of Cloud Computing, how to become more efficient with it, and how to make it secure.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/1369140" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Mon, 26 Apr 2010 05:28:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/1369140What's the Best Definition of SOA?http://soa.sys-con.com/node/945948
It seems that I am not as flexible as I believed I could be on my thinking regarding SOA. I attempted to categorize various SOA engagements in my SYS-CON article entitled A Classification Scheme for Defining SOA, I believed that I could hide my dissatisfaction with the lack of clarity surrounding SOA by lumping SODA/application development into its own subcategory. I was wrong! When it comes down to it, there's still just too much ambiguity surrounding the term service.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/945948" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:15:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/945948Cloud Computing Unleashes the Potential of SOA - Mezeo Chairmanhttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/1008213
The concept of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has been around for a long time, and some people believe it has not fulfilled its promise. To the contrary, SOA is well on its way to fulfilling its promise and the rise of cloud computing infrastructure is an important step in this process. In fact, cloud computing is already beginning to unleash the potential of SOA and much more is on the way.
<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/1008213" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:30:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/1008213Enterprise Mashups: The New Face of Your SOAhttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/719917
Enterprise mashups, one of the hottest Web 2.0 technologies today, could impact your SOA in a very positive way. But are you ready for them? How does an SOA architect prepare for this dynamic technology? Do you know what a mashup is and what value it brings to an enterprise? Can you distinguish between a consumer mashup and an enterprise mashup? <p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/719917" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:15:00 ESThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/719917SOA: Preparing for Mashupshttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/600928
It's important to remember that there is a huge resource being created on the Web these days in terms of both services and content. This includes access to SaaS applications (that are better than their enterprise-bound counterparts), service marketplaces, and even mash-able applications that you can mix and match with other Web 2.0 applications / APIs / services or enterprise applications / services to quickly solve business problems.<p><a href="http://soa.sys-con.com/node/600928" target="_blank">read more</a></p>Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:45:00 EDThttp://soa.sys-con.com/node/600928